Transfiguration Sunday comes early this year. It seems that
we’ve only just wrapped up the Christmas festivities and put away the trees and
lights and decorations and already we’re at the Transfiguration. In a few days, on Wednesday, we’ll exchange
beauty for ashes; we’ll trade the joy of Christmas for the mourning of lent (to
invert Isaiah 61:3). We’ll put away our hallelujahs
and begin the long trek toward the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of our
Lord.
But that’s the way of things in this life. Life turns
quickly. Yesterday the children were born, today they’re grown, tomorrow they’ll
have children of their own. Our lives move from one moment to the next in a
continual blur. It all happens so fast, everything changes. It’s here and it’s
gone, every moment fleeting.
In our gospel reading for today we find Jesus along with his
friends, Peter, James and John atop a very high mountain experiencing one of
those fleeing moments – a literal mountain top experience that is over all too
soon. The glory of the theophany fades and Jesus and his disciples return to
the plains below.
But for that one glorious moment, they were overwhelmed by a
theophany, an appearance of God. God, who is a separate reality distinct from
and unlimited by the word, sometimes embraces the self-limitations of a
specific time and a particular form in order to appear to us in this world. God
appears as a thunderstorm, with thunder and hail, lightning and torrents of
rain. Or God appears as an infinitely burning bush. And there atop the mountain
in the glory of God’s appearance, Jesus was transfigured, transformed, changed.
It is a strange experience, dislocated in both space and
time. Heaven and earth meet, the past and the future overlap in a moment of
transcending present. Time and space are warped, blending forward and backward.
And the mountain is the place for this kind of experience. The mountain is the
place where one can meet with God, the place where one can leave the world of
the natural and the mundane and to ascend into very heavens. Around the world,
in nearly every culture, from Israel to Greece, from India to China, from Japan
to the Americas, the mountain is a place where the reality of our world touches
the divine realms. There is a mystery there – a sense of awe, surrounded by
banks of clouds with an expansive view, unlimited vision of both the clouds of heaven
and the horizons of earth. The God of the bible is sometimes named El-Shaddai which may mean the God of the
mountain. He meets with Moses on the mountain. He meets with Elijah on the
mountain. And this is not without relevance to our story today.
The mountain is unnamed in our gospel account; Mark
describes it only as a “very high mountain.” Some have suggested that it was Mount
Hermon, or perhaps Mount Tabor, but neither of these are especially high
mountains. Others suggest that Mark is thinking of the same mountain of the north
that apocalyptic authors, like the author of 1 Enoch, described as the place
where there would be a manifestation of the divine in the last days. This is a
place of mysterium tremendum – a place
of strange harmony between fear and awe, a place of both fascination and great
danger. A place of wonder and of terrible power.
Jesus was transformed there in front of them on top of that
mountain. Elijah and Moses appeared with him and a cloud of glory overshadowed
them all. And from that cloud a voice from heaven spoke saying, “This is my
son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!”
Here on the mountain with Jesus we are dislocated in both
time and space. The same voice that spoke to Jesus at this baptism, speaks
again to say, “This is my son, the beloved.” Moses and Elijah, prophets from
the past are there to speak with Jesus about his soon coming death. Time and
space blend back and forward. The Greek language has two words for time,
chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to
chronological or sequential time, the tick, tick, tick, of the clock hands one
moment following after another. Kairos
signifies a time between, moments of indeterminate time in which something
special happens. Chronos is quantitative and measurable. Kairos is qualitative and cannot be measured
or marked or preserved. It can only be
experienced.
“Jesus took John and James and Peter up the mountain in
ordinary, daily chronos; during the glory of the Transfiguration they were
dwelling in Kairos” (L’Engle, 93)
Indeed – the transfiguration event has sometimes been
interpreted by theologians as a misplaced story of the resurrection. The description
of Jesus’ transfiguration shares some similarity with the resurrection and it
is thought by some scholars that the events of the resurrection were moved
backward in the story so as to help make sense of the inexplicable resurrection
event. Jesus had just before this event, told his disciples that he would
suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of
the law, and that he would be, that he must
be killed – but that after three
days he would rise again. He spoke to them plainly about this, but they didn’t
understand. (Mark 8: 31 – 32). The passion prediction – not understood in the
moment is finally comprehended when seen through the eyes of the resurrection. We
didn’t, we don’t understand how death can be glory – not until after the
resurrection. I’m not convinced that this is the case – that the
transfiguration story is a resurrection account transplaced in time - but it is
true that the mystery of the transfiguration event expects the resurrection, and
the resurrection explains the mystery of the transfiguration.
Peter’s desire to memorialize the moment is understandable.
Time is fleeting. Everything fades. The voice speaks and then is silent. The cloud
of glory envelops them and then is gone. The moment on the mountain fades and
Jesus and his friends return to the plains below.
'Tis good, Lord,
to be here!
Your glory fills the night;
Your face and garments, like the sun,
Shine with unborrowed light.
Fulfiller of the past!
Promise of things to be!
We hail your body glorified,
And our redemption see.
Before we taste of death,
We see your kingdom come;
We long to hold the vision bright,
And make this hill our home.
‘Tis Good, Lord, To Be Here - J. Armitage Robinson
Wednesday is the beginning of the Lenten season – a time of preparation. We only just recently celebrated the birth of Lord and Savior and already we are getting ourselves ready to consider his gruesome death and glorious resurrection. But here on the mountain, in this transfiguration event, we see and hear and experience the fulfillment of that preparation. In the words of Robinson’s hymn, “We hail his body glorified, and our redemption see.”
And
with Peter we might say, “Rabbi, Teacher, Master, it is good that we are here.”
But Peter didn’t really understand what was happening and he definitely didn’t
know what he was saying. He was so afraid. He was sore afraid (to steal from
Luke’s phraseology.) On the mountain, surrounded by the cloud of glory, with the
prediction of pain and suffering and death blotted out by the awe and wonder of
the moment, Peter says, “let’s build three shrines here. One for Moses, one for
Elijah, and one for Jesus.” But he didn’t know what he was saying. He was
afraid.
But
time moves on, and as suddenly as it began, it was all over. Time is fleeting,
every moment bleeding into the next. The vision fades, the cloud evaporates and
the transfiguration is over. Jesus and
his friends come back down from the mountain and he tells them to keep quiet
about it all – until after the Human one, the Son of God, had risen from the dead.
“History cannot be stopped, and we must
grasp it significance. The light of the resurrection enables us to see it with
hope. The death of Jesus is not the victory of darkness, which is already
overcome” (Gutierrez, 51).
Lent is
the time of preparation. We’ve had the glory and joy on the mountain, but now
we’ll go back down to the plain and begin the long, hard road towards death and
suffering and to the wonder and mystery of the resurrection. We may not
understand, but we will take that journey.
Gutierrez, Gustavo. Sharing the Word through the
Liturgical Year. Orbis Book, Mary Knoll, NY. 1997.
L’Engle Madeline. Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith
and Art, North Point Press, New York, NY, 1980.
Robinson, J. Armitage. ‘Tis
Good, Lord, To Be Here. 1890.
